It was only too late that many of them realized that their best option was to hide. Disappear. Blend in with the humans and live quiet, mundane lives.
Tyche didn’t want Yesuntei’s power. He barely wanted his own. He couldn’t get rid of this pearl fast enough, but it wasn’t like he could chuck it into the river. Yesuntei deserved better than that. The one place that could protect it was her shrine in Brightspire.
“I’m sorry about Yesuntei,” Shawn murmured. “She seemed like a sweet, kind person. I wish we could have saved her too.”
Tyche grunted. “Yes. She was a sweet person. It wasn’t in her nature to hurt people. Not intentionally, at least. It…it was complicated. I’ve known…” He paused and frowned, his fists tightening into balls. “Iknewher for a long time.
He shook his head and shoved against the ground, pushing until he staggered to his feet like a newborn deer. Everything ached, but he felt more in control standing. “So, what am I supposed to call you? Is it Shawn? Teitei called you Shey at the end.”
“Shey is fine with me.” He raised a brow and smirked. “And you’re Tyche?”
“Yes, but I don’t mind Ty.”
The silence stretched, becoming loaded with unsaid things and questions begging to be asked. It was easier to hide things in the prison. There were more important things—like survival—on their minds. Secrecy became the key to that survival.
Yet, they were free of the prison, and survival felt a little more likely. Tyche was already putting some pieces together about the man still sitting in the cave entrance, but he struggled to believe some of the answers he was coming up with. He wanted to hear the words from Shey’s mouth.
Of course, asking questions of Shey meant being willing to answer some of Shey’s questions. And it was likely that he would need to answer them honestly. He liked to tease Shey about being simple and slow, but that was only because he was sure the man was quite smart.
Tyche snapped first. The tension was killing him, and he was bad at reading people. “So…we’re just not going to talk about any of the weird shit that happened in those last few days in the prison?”
Shey smirked and rose to his feet. He took a couple of steps closer, and Tyche struggled not to tense or edge away. He held his ground against the giant.
Why were they always so tall?
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
Shey hummed and nodded. He stared out at the forest spread out in front of them. “I thought it could wait a while. We have to figure out our next steps anyway.” He glanced over at Tyche. “You don’t have a clue as to where we are, do you?”
“Not even a little. Damardor is a safe bet, but that’s about it.”
One corner of Shey’s mouth teased higher. “You don’t have magic for that?”
“Not even a crumb.”
Tyche watched Shey out of the corner of his eye, weighing the man. He managed to almost always have this casual, relaxed demeanor with a playful quip on the tip of his tongue, but there was an undercurrent of ruthlessness and coldness about him that was more than a bit frightening. Chatting with Shey puthim at ease, made him want to lower his defenses, but that felt like the most dangerous thing in the world. Could Shey really be trusted?
No.
Tyche hadn’t survived this long by trusting others. He didn’t trust anyone.
But hewantedto trust Shey.
He stayed with Tyche through the night when he didn’t have to. He protected Tyche when he could have left him behind, left him to die.
“I think we should stick together,” Shey announced.
Tyche frowned. “You intend to destroy this group aimlessly killing people accused of having magic.” It should have been a question, but Shey didn’t seem the type to stand by and let innocent people get killed.
“I do.” Those two words were whispered but held a will of steel. Shey didn’t mean to retreat. He’d survived weeks of captivity and torture, but he was ready to head straight back into the lion’s den.
The idea of going with him was tempting. He preferred to avoid all fights, but he owed it to Yesuntei to uncover what the hell was going on. She deserved justice.
But that wasn’t his only fear.
His bigger one was that someone was hunting gods yet again. Tyche had lived through this once already. He refused to see the rise of yet another Zyros.
